


Unexpected Betrayals

by phantomchajo



Series: The Pack's Domain [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomchajo/pseuds/phantomchajo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Betrayals hurts, especially when they are unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Quiting time

The Bar was closed, and the Club itself was closing. The last of the stragglers were being herded out the door as I was sipping my coffee at one of the tables near the dance floor.

After the doors were closed and locked, Jake did one last sweep of the club then signaled for the House lights to come up. It was time to get cleaning. It also meant that I could relax. I mean really relax.

Standing up, I remove my work jacket and drape it across the back of a chair and remove my shirt. It lands on the jacket as I head to the middle of the dance floor. Making sure everyone is clear I relax and let my wings and tail morph out.

Like black ink stains spreading across my shoulders, then extending out and to the sides. Twenty feet from tip to tip, matt black and with the texture of the softest suede leather ever felt. That's how my wings have been described to me.

Ever time I do this all the employees stop to watch. Delight, awe, envy, even lust wash over me. It's strange feeling this from one's co-workers. But it means that I am not feared for being what I am. A Mutant.

Arching my back and raising my arms as if in benediction to the heaven and the gods that reside there, my head tilts even farther back as arch my wings upwards. I've been described by many as either as the Fallen Angel Lucifer, or one of those rare demons that have been taken back into heaven. In the background the song 'Angles Fall' by Ayla is playing. It somehow fits.

Muscles stretch and ache pleasantly, my back pops as I straighten up, curling them about me. Slowly dropping my arms then spinning on toe tip, I let them flare out again. I move in time with the music. Wrapping my arms about my chest, long slender fingers rest on my shoulders. A moment later they travel upwards over my closed eyes to release my hair from it's confining tie. Shaking my head letting the waist length mass of black silken strands cascade everywhere, I stretch upwards one last time then fold my wings around me.

Have you ever watched that cartoon about the gargoyles living in New York City? Have you seen the way they fold their wings about their shoulders? Well that's how I fold mine.

I get a moment of silence then a round of applause and whistles from everyone.

I feel my face heat up. Ye gods, I'm blushing! No matter how many times I do this at the close of the night I still blush.

"Drac, are you sure you won't consider doing erotic dances here? I mean come on! If you and your friends did one show a week, we could rake in a fortune." Jake comments with a grin. He's teasing me.

The first time he ever mentioned it, he was serious. But after I explained things he understood and accepted my reasons for refusing. Now it's just a game between us.

"Alright people, I want us to be out of here before sunrise!" turning to the rest of the employees that are still watching and shooing them off to get their work done. "And you," pointing at me, "Get dressed and go home. You've been working too much lately and I know you have semester finals coming up soon. Off with you now. Your off the clock, so don't even think about picking up a rag, a broom, or anything else."

With a chuckle and a shake of my head I turn back to retrieve my shirt and jacket. "Yes Sir" I say meekly, but with a glint of good natured humor in my blue eyes. Waving night to the others scattered about the place I head to the back to change into my regular shirt and jacket, tossing my work clothes into a bag as I do.

About fifteen minutes later, emerging from the back, wings and tail one again hidden, I head to the door where Jake is waiting to let me out.

"Night Jake" I say in passing.

"Night Drac, Take care on your way home. It's snowing pretty heavily and is pretty damned cold out there." Jake says as he opens the door and lets me out.

Stepping out onto the side walk, and heading home. He's right, It is fucking cold out here. I left my motorcycle at home tonight, feeling like walking when I came in. It's not that far from home, only about Four or Five blocks at the most. About a twenty minute leisurely walk.

Before I've even gone 10 feet from the doors, I have a layer of snow on my shoulders and in my hair. I look forward to climbing into bed with Gypsy and Kitty when I get home. They know just how to warm me up at night. My thoughts were on home, not on the dangers of the streets. That was my biggest mistake that night.

Little did I know that I was being watched, by more then one group of hunters. And they all had plans for me.


	2. The Hunters

It was about a block and a half when I felt the eyes of my hunters on me. That crawling sensation between one's shoulder-blades. The expected feeling of a knife or a bullet to come out of the dark.

Pausing as if to look into a store front, I use what reflections I could see to examine the street behind me. The buildings in this area were too tall to see their tops reflected in the window. No cars on the road, no pedestrians on the sidewalks. Or rather, no one that would help me if something happened. Raking my hair out of my face from where the wind blew it, I glanced behind me. Several men, trailed about a half a block behind. To the opposite side, several more were coming towards me.

As far as I could tell, I was in deep trouble. Especial since my empathy, and telepathy were too short ranged to make contact with anyone at home. Even Firebird or Psion. Both were probably deeply asleep right now.

The best I could hope for was a passing police cruiser. But Murphy and his Laws were against me this night.

Extending my telepathy and empathy outwards, to brush against the minds of my hunters, so that I could at least have a fighting chance to escape. I shuddered at what I sensed. Dark pleasures, anticipation, lust, fear, and Hatred. Such overwhelming hatred slammed into me that it took my breath away.

I put a hand out to steady myself against the glass, pulling back from the feel of these hunter's minds as if scalded. Glancing left then right though the curtain of my loose hair, I narrowed my eyes and studied each group. What they displayed scared me more then one would believe.

They wore the Symbol of the F.O.H.

I almost wished that HE would appear. At least I knew what he would do to me.

Use your head, Fight or flight is your options, which best suits you?

It was Rook's voice in my head. A memory from one of her, Kitty's and Taz's self-defense lessons they insisted they teach us all. I might have bitched and grumbled and whined about it. But now I am ever so thankful.

Taking a deep calming breath I slowly let it out then turned around and looked the area over. A few yards away was an alleyway entrance. I could make out the fire escape ladder going up the side of the building. If I made it I could head to the roof and from there take flight. Unless they had some means of taking to the air themselves, I would be safe. Or in theory I should be.

I think I took them by surprise when I went from a dead standstill to a full out run in a split second. One of the advantages of being so tall is that you have a longer stride.

I was ever so lucky that the roadway was clear of ice and snow. Otherwise I might not have had such good luck. But as soon as I hit the sidewalk, I knew my luck had ran out.

A slick patch of ice sent me sliding, only to stumble when I had traction again. I rammed into the building, hard enough to wind me a moment. A pain radiated out from my left shoulder, but I ignored it. I was good at mastering my pain. I had two years of practice under the 'loving' hands of my so called Father.

I heard the yells of my hunters as they came after me.

Not looking back I vanished into the darkness of the alleyway. Making another dash for the fire escape ladder that rested about four feet over my head. I managed to grab it with both hands. Hissing as my flesh came in contact with the ice cold metal. I wasn't wearing gloves. Another mistake to add to my growing list for the night.

Scrambling up the ladder then up the fire escape itself, trying to be careful of the patches of ice and snow that had built up on it. I was also trying to be somewhat quiet. To me it sounded like a herd of steel shod children tap dancing on sheet metal. I don't know what the Hunters heard.

Pain throbbing though my shoulder warned me I did more then just bruise it. But if I survive, I'll worry with it then. And if I don't survive, then it won't matter will it?


	3. Roof tops

After what seemed like an eternity, I had arrived on the roof top. I thought I had a chance to get away from the hunters. I thought wrong.

Looking about I saw a fairy tale landscape. All the ugliness hidden beneath a layer of pureness and city shine. The broken bottles and discarded needles from the junkies, hidden from view.

I saw no tracks across this eerie landscape. Taking a precious moment to release my wings from the confines that held them, I draped them about my shoulders like the cloak of a regal, yet sinister lord of the land. I could hear the hunters below me, making a go at the ladder. Apparently none of them were quite as tall as I was and it took extra time for them.

Hands tucked under my armpits to keep them warm and started on my trek across the roof top. I had to be weary of the dangers that lay hidden. Of concrete blocks to trip over and bottles that could roll as I step on them.

I was over half way across when a dark figure stepped out from behind the shed that housed the stairwell for this building. There was something familiar about this figure. Not overly huge, not under-whelminglly tiny. But looks could be deceiving in the cold weather. A person bundled up could look several times larger then they truly were.

I did not dare to scan this figure for fear of what I would sense.

"Going somewhere Essex?" The figure asked.

Gods, that voice. I knew this person. I worked with this person for nearly two years now. Hellfires and Damnation! I gave this person her bloody Job!

"Cindy?" I asked dumbly.

"What's the matter Essex? Surprised?" She asked with a sneer of hatred in her voice.

"Your one of Them Cindy? But Why? What have I done to cause you to turn on me." Good one Drac. Ask all the dumb questions and waste time.

I can hear them coming up the ladder behind me. In another couple of minutes they will be on the roof. And if I'm not in the air by then, my chances are slim to none that I survive.

"Don't you know Essex? You're a Fucking Mutie! That alone is enough reason for me to join them. You and your Fuck Buddies are all God Damned Muties. You don't deserve to live, let alone breathe the same air as us Pure Humans." Such hatred in her voice.

I was shivering by now. Not so much from the cold but from the emotions her words awoke in me. Things I had thought had finally healed.

"Listen to yourself Cindy. You spout Bigotry and nonsense, just like 'good' little followers. I thought more highly of you then this." Gods, I was getting angry. That wasn't good.

"Bullshit! It's because of you that I'm here" She pulls a shotgun from out of her coat and aims it at me. But she doesn't fire yet.

I let a bark of laughter escape. "Here? And where is that Cindy? A good paying job with full benefits. A decent apartment, and friends at work that are willing to help when and where they can?" I stood straighter, unwrapping my wings from about me. Half spreading them and staring at her in the face. "My Trust. MY Friendship. Does that mean anything to you? Or were you jealous that I refused your advances?"

Her eyes narrow at that as her face turned red. "You Fucking Bastard! You have Fucking Idea what I was offering you. Ever single time you refused me. Every single god damned time it Hurt."

"Hurt? HURT?! What the Hell do you know about being Hurt Girl? Being turned down isn't being Hurt. Being betrayed is being Hurt. Being Abused and used like a Fucking lab rat by one's own Father is being Hurt." My voice is not overly loud, but you could hear the pain in every single word I said as I stalked closer to her.

"Let me tell you about what it is to be hurt. For over two years I was just another experiment to that sick, twisted, fucking Bastard of a man that is the closest thing I will every have as a Father. Being tested, poked, prodded until I was a broken, bleeding piece of flesh. When he decided to see what would happen if he 'enhanced' my own natural mutation, I would scream until I had no voice left."

Barely healed wounds were broke open again. Emotional scabs were ripped away reveling the still raw bleeding wound beneath the surface.

"I wasn't the only one either. My close friends were also used the way I was. We were all raped, mentally, emotionally, even physically by his lackeys. Pain and pleasure mixed till I could no longer tell them apart."

Tears in her eyes as she paled, hearing and feeling the truth in my words. A hand pressed against her lips, the gun in her hand dropped by her side as she looked into my face. Trembling she reached up to press her fingertips against my pale, cold and damp cheeks.

Damp because I didn't even realize I had started to cry from the pain those memories inflected on me. "I was almost healed enough to accept what you had offered. But you pressed to fast, to hard. The only way to keep from breaking again was to refuse you. If you had only waited and accepted what I said. Things might be different." My voice soft now as I placed a hand on her shoulder. The other caressing her tear stained cheek.

During the entire time, I had forgotten about the Hunters at my back. And I paid for it that night. In more ways then one.


	4. A Price too high

"Oh how sweet and sorrowful." Came a mocking voice from behind me.

Cindy's eyes became wide as saucers as she suddenly remembered the people that she had agreed to help. "I'm sorry... I'm sooo sorry Jonathan."

It was the first and only time she said my first name.

The rest of that event was a blur of pain and blood.

I heard the twin clicks of a double barrel shotgun being cocked. Instinctively I flared my wings so that I could take to the sky. Then I herd the sound of that gun being fired.

Ka-BLAM BLAM!

Both barrels fired at the same time. I thought I was dead. I wished that I was dead when I realized the true extent of what had happened.

Cindy had been helping the hunters, giving them information on my mutation. With that info they had planed accordingly. They did not use slugs, they used bird-shot for ammo. Each shell casing full of tiny pellets designed to shred the flesh of birds in hunting season.

The damage was devastating. It caught me from my lower thighs to the back of my head and almost to the tips of both wings. The leather of my pants and jacket prevented any real damage to my back or legs. Severe bruising is what I am told had happened. Though a few pellets did make it though to my legs. I felt the hot sting of pain then the blood as it flowed down the back of my head and under the collar of my jacket.

My wings though, oh gods, what happened to them was a pure nightmare. The delicate flight membranes between the bones was shredded. Blood oozed down what was left, freezing in the cold. Searing almost as much as the heat of the passing pellets. I had lost nearly one third of my wings in that shot.

I screamed, my body jerking forward from the impact, wings crumpling, leaving bright scarlet trails in the pure white snow.

Cindy jerks in startlement.

I had inadvertently shielded her from the shotgun blast.

She screams in fear, pulling the trigger on the gun she held.

The shot ricocheted off the rooftop, barely missing me. She stumbled back, having forgotten how close to the edge of the building she was. She hit the calf-high wall at the edge and went tumbling over, shrieking.

The screams were cut off by the wet sounding Thud of a body hitting pavement eight stories below.

I cried out as I fell forward, having tried to catch her. I failed.

I was yet again, betrayed. This time by my own failure to save a friend.

The last thing I saw before I passed out was the gentle, delicate fall of snow.


	5. Epilogue - Forgiving and letting go

I don't remember anything after I passed out. I never heard the screams of terror as the Hunters became the Prey. Never saw the roof top turn scarlet with their blood.

Never felt the strong and gentle, yet so cold arms lift me up from where I lay, only to cradle me against a chest that was just as cold, yet somehow so familiar.

I awoke the next morning in my bed. Painfully sore, wings stiff and bandaged. A bottle of pain killers setting on the night stand next to the bed.

For the next several hours I drifted in and out of a troubled sleep.

Then Jake called me. He told me of Cindy's death. I told him to arrange to claim her body if no relatives came forward. Then hung up the phone.

My room turned blurry as tears of grief came. It wasn't long after that my friends and lovers were with me, sharing my grief. Those eight men and women that survived what I went though, who understood without needing words or explanations.

It was several days later, days that I don't remember, that Jake called again. We could claim Cindy's body the next day. He asked what type of funeral arrangements I wanted. I told him simple ones. Just me, my friends and the people from the club.

A week after Cindy's betrayal and death, we were laying her to rest. Tempest presided as the priest for the services. The day was guaranteed to be a perfect winter day. I was still on medication so everything was hazy still.

After the service, there was little to be said. I was last to leave. Dropping a handful of seeds into the grave. Come spring they would bloom into beautiful rose bushes. With blooms of glorious blue, silver, red, purple, gold, green, white and many other colors.

Turning I walked towards the waiting cars.

Tempest and Rook, Firebird and Taz, Psion and Shiva, and last but not least, Kitty and Gypsy. They all stood waiting for me. I looked at each and knew that I would heal in time.

No one seemed to notice the two groups of people that stood off to the side in the distance to either side.

One that consisted of an older man in a wheelchair, a younger man with ruby glasses, a pretty red-head next to him, a slightly hunched figure behind the wheelchair wearing glasses. On the other side of the older man was a pair of blonde men, one taller and proud with an Asian woman in his arms, the other with his hands in his pocket. Next to them was a Regal looking woman, with white hair. Behind her was a tall black man that had a look of a warrior. Crouched down in front was a rough man, chewing on a cigar. And last was a young couple, standing together, yet apart. The man was tall and slender, smoking a cigirette. He had long red-brown hair and sunglasses one. The Woman had auburn hair with a white streak though it.

Professor Charles Xavier, Scott Summers, Jean Grey-Summers, Henry McCoy, Warren Worthington, Betsy Braddock, Bobby Drake, Ororo Monroe, Bishop, Logan, Remy LeBeau and Rogue. The X-men.

The Other group was only a pair of men. One tall, wearing metallic looking armor, and a shredded looking cape, his skin death white, with eyes of blood red. A blood Red diamond on his forehead. Nathan Essex, Mr. Sinister. And the other, a scruff, feral looking blond man. Victor Creed, Sabertooth.

~Fini~


End file.
